The embodiments herein relate generally to devices used to catch fish.
When catching fish there are several advantages of using a lure as opposed to using bait: Lures are less messy than bait. Lures gut hook fewer fish (gut hooking is when the fish takes the hook deeply, or even completely swallows the hook). Lures allow the fisher to cover more water, even from shore or a pier. The fisher can target the species you are after more efficiently with lures, and lures are easy to change out.
There are at least seven kinds of fishing lures: jigs, spinners, spoons, soft plastic baits, plugs, spinerbaits, and flies. A jig has a weighted lead head, comes in every size and color and can be dressed in feathers, hair, a soft plastic grub, or with bait. A spinner is a metal shaft with spinning blade. Soft plastic baits are created by pouring liquid plastic into a mold and adding dyes, metallic flakes, or scents. These can resemble the natural forage of fish, like worms, crawfish, lizards or frogs. Plugs are constructed from hollow plastic or wood to resemble baitfish, frogs or other prey. They usually sport two or three treble hooks. A spinnerbait is an awkward looking fishing lure, consisting of a safety-pin like wire attached to a lead head body. The body usually is dressed with a rubber skirt and the arm with one or two metallic blades like those seen on spinners. Flies are very light lures that imitate insects in various stages of their life cycle, or other natural prey such as baitfish, leeches, hoppers or even mice and frogs. Prior to embodiments of the disclosed invention a spoon was a curved metal lure.
Prior to the disclosed invention, conventional spoons were made of metal for largely historical reasons, the first spoons were literally broken off ends of a spoon. This is because metal sank and could be configured to look like a spoon that reflected light and would be easy to catch fish. There was an attempt to make a wooden spoon lure briefly in the 1920's. See R. Lewis, Classic Fishing Lures: Identification and Price Guide, p. 293 (2011). Paul Bunyan Company made “The Dinky” a 1/20 ounce wooden spoon with a feather hackle or fly in four colors. This project was scrapped after a year because making curved wood that sank was impossible for The Dinky. Embodiments of the present invention solve this problem.
Metal spoons are heavy and sink too quickly for fish to see and track the metal spoon. Metal spoons must be worked too quickly in shallow water and this rapid movement does not allow fish to see or track them. Metal spoons, if worked too slowly, become ensnarled in grass. Metal spoons, if worked too fast, come to the surface and become ineffectual. Fishing in shallow, grassy waters ranging from four to eight inches was difficult. Metal spoons become ensnarled and fouled.
There has been some research done recently on spoons made from plastic injection molding. The prior art includes: U.S. Patent Application 2007/0169397 filed by Mieczkowski; U.S. Pat. No. 7,114,285 issued to Ince; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,162,829 issued to Braaten.
Ince and Braaten teach a lure made from a plastic working process that can also be theoretically made from wood. However, there is no teaching of a sinker embedded in the spoon, therefore the lures would not sink and spin in the water. Ince and Braaten due not claim that this structure or functionality exist in their lures. Rather, they are using surface lures that move along the surface and are for simply a different kind of fishing. Mieczkowski teaches a plastic lure with a different shape to obtain different movement in water.